Solar dryers as a promising drying technology: a comprehensive review

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - Dryers are utilized in food industry and agriculture in order to extend the useful lifespan of corps. Thermal energy is required for water removal in...     

Chromatographic determination of sulfasalazine and its active metabolites: greenness assessment and application to spiked human plasma

Green TLC-densitometric and RP-HPLC methods were developed and validated for the determination of the active prodrug sulfasalazine (SZ), its active metabolite mesalazine (MZ) and the major active metabolite of mesalazine, N-acetyl-5-aminosalicylic acid (AS). In the developed TLC-densitometric method, chromatographic separation was carried out on TLC silica gel plates 60 F₂₅₄ using a developing system consisting of ethyl acetate–methanol–ammonia solution 33% (8:2.5:0.3, by volume) and then scanning the separated bands at 215 nm using hydrochlorothiazide as an internal standard with linearity ranges of 0.4–3, 0.4–2.4 and 0.3–2 for SZ, MZ and AS, respectively. The developed RP-HPLC method depended on chromatographic separation using a C₁₈ column with a solvent mixture of methanol–aqueous acetic acid solution (pH 5) as a mobile phase with gradient elution mode and UV scanning at 243 nm using pyrazinamide as internal standard with linearity ranges of 5–50, 5–40, and 3–20 for SZ, MZ and AS, respectively. US Food and Drug Administration guidelines were followed during validation of the methods. The greenness of the developed methods was estimated using the greenness profile and the Eco-Scale approach. Both methods passed the four quadrants of the greenness profile and had Eco-Scale score ˃75, thus they were considered to be green according to these approaches.     

Isolated resonances and nonlinear damping

We analyze isolated resonance curves (IRCs) in single-degree-of-freedom systems possessing nonlinear damping. Through the combination of singularity theory and the averaging method, the onset and merging of IRCs, which coincide to isola and simple bifurcation singularities, respectively, can be analytically predicted. Numerical simulations confirm the accuracy of the analytical developments. Another important finding of this paper is that we unveil a geometrical connection between the topology of the damping force and IRCs. Specifically, we demonstrate that extremas and zeros of the damping force correspond to the appearance and merging of IRCs. Considering a damping force possessing several minima and maxima confirms the general validity of the analytical result. It also evidences a very complex scenario for which different IRCs are created, co-exist and then merge together to form a super IRC which eventually merges with the main resonance peak.     

Preparation of a dual-functionalized fumed silica nanoparticle catalysis for synthesis of azaluorenone derivatives

Research on Chemical Intermediates - A dual-functional silica-based catalyst was prepared by treating fumed silica with amino-containing silane then 1,4-butane sultone. The presence of functional...     

Performance evaluation of praseodymium doped fiber amplifiers

Optical Review - In this paper, we report the performance evaluation of praseodymium doped fiber amplifier (PDFA) operating in 1.25–1.35 μm band of wavelengths based on...     

Green micellar stability-indicating high-performance liquid chromatography method for determination of rupatadine fumarate in the presence of its main impurity desloratadine: Oxidative degradation kinetics study

A green micellar stability-indicating high-performance liquid chromatography method was developed for rupatadine fumarate determination in existence with its main impurity desloratadine. Separation was attained using Hypersil ODS column (150 × 4.6 mm, 5 μm), the micellar mobile phase consisted of 0.13 M sodium dodecyl sulfate, 0.1 M disodium hydrogen phosphate adjusted by phosphoric acid to pH 2.8 and 10% n-butanol. The column was maintained at 45^◦C and detection was carried out at 267 nm. A linear response was achieved over the range of 2–160 μg/ml for rupatadine and 0.4–8 μg/ml for desloratadine. The method was applied for rupatadine determination in alergoliber tablets and alergoliber syrup without the interference of methyl paraben and propyl paraben present as main excipients. Rupatadine fumarate revealed pronounced susceptibility to oxidation; further study of oxidative degradation kinetics was carried out. Rupatadine was found to follow pseudo-first-order kinetics when exposed to 10% H₂O₂ at 60 and 80°C and the activation energy was found to be 15.69 Kcal/mol. At a lower temperature (40°C), degradation kinetics regression was best fitted as a polynomial quadratic relationship, thus rupatadine oxidation at a lower temperature tends to adopt a second-order kinetics rate. Oxidative degradation product structure was revealed using infrared and found to be rupatadine N-oxide at all temperature values.     

Spectroelectrochemical and electrochromic behavior of poly(methylene blue) and poly(thionine)-modified multi-walled carbon nanotubes

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - The increasing efforts devoted to fabricating electrochromic (EC) devices have motivated a lot of studies to develop new EC materials. Herein, we introduce...